Once upon a time, a girl named Sarah took to the skies. Thus began one of the greatest airline adventures of her life.
I left Chillingham Road on a bus, weighed down like a pack mule with an overstuffed suitcase, bursting backpack and I was wearing everything that just wouldn’t fit into the bags. As the bus rambled along the oh so familiar route, I got to take one last look at the city I had called home for the past nine months. It was a bittersweet goodbye, but I was ready for my northern Nevada home.
From the bus I hopped … well, lumbered … onto a train London bound. On the train I found, tucked into my bag, a sweet note from my husband along with a scavenger hunt. The little game made the next three hours on the train, on the metro and into London Heathrow fly by.
I arrived at the baggage check desk in my loaded down state, more than ready to shed a few dozen pounds. The airline attendant thought my carry-on backpack looked a little large, so she directed me to the baggage check desk to have it weighed along with my bag. After asking the desk attendant if I needed to weigh the backpack, he asked “well, is it heavy?”
“Nah, not really,” I replied cooly as beads of sweat dripped down my face from the weight.
He let me go. Phew.
One flight and several hours later, I was in a deserted Rome airport. The party at Gate G was me, the lone security guard and a pigeon I affectionately named Percy.
As it was midnight and my flight didn’t leave until 9 a.m. the next day, I wandered the airport looking for a place to catch a few winks. Rows of hard, metal chairs with armrests on each one spread before me. I was exhausted and this was not going to be a good night.
I finally found a chair with a broken armrest and curled up in the little space. One hour of restless sleep later, I felt someone shaking my shoulder …
Above me stood a man I will call Luigi. A maintenance man who spoke nothing but italian, I was sure I was doomed to wander the halls for the rest of the night as I couldn’t sleep in the airport. Great.
Instead, he led me down a dark corridor into a dark room with a bunch of wheelchairs and two benches. He slid the two benches together, which gave me a little room to stretch out and sleep. Somehow, I understood in italian that I could only stay there until 5 a.m., because everyone would be coming to work at that time. Then Luigi closed the door and let me sleep privately in peace.
I learned three things from my long haul flight. First, if you hit the little in-seat TVs long and hard enough, they will start working. Second, don’t eat the ravioli. Third, nuns on their way back from Rome aren’t interested in being talkative or accepting pass along cards.
The fun didn’t stop 13 hours later when I finally landed in the good old USA. While I made it to LA and through customs alright, my bag was conspicuously missing from the carrousel. I and two other Alitalia employees throughly searched the place – and even sent down a test bag through the chute to see if it was stuck. The final verdict was that my bag was missing.
The time was winding down for me to make my connecting flight to Reno, so I filed out their claim form and went on my way.
Afraid I would be cutting it close on time, I rushed through security and zipped to my gate. Imagine my surprise when I found the flight was delayed by an hour and a half. Apparently, as my plane was en route to LA, a passenger had a “medical emergency” and they had to land immediately. Yikes!
The best part of this story was when family and friends met me at the Reno airport. It was one of the happier moments of my life.
The luggage drama concluded (ish) Monday, when I got a call from American Airlines saying my bag had arrived, but I might want to come pick it up.
Uh oh.
The exterior of the suitcase was ripped all down the back. There was a hole in the bottom where you could see my unmentionables spilling out. The handle was also cracked and broken.
Needless to say, my communication with Alitalia is far from over.
In spite of all the adventure and hassle, being home is worth every second of it.
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